LazyTrailRider Posted July 19, 2022 Share 16 hours ago, ChrisF said: EDIT - He confirmed that they are using 15 to 18 kW.h on the bad winter days. Certainly should be over producing during summer. Obviously the question is how deep you want to go down this rabbit hole .... for now he is happy that summer is taken care of and winter is below the 600kW.h mark, after which COCT has a hefty increase in the unit rates. Going to be very interesting to see his annual figures .... his install was done at the start of this winter. Yip, completely expected, and we haven't actually seen much of the usual proper winter weather (with entire weeks of rain) yet. The reality is that the graph swings drastically in Cape Town. Case in point (@Schnavel have a look at the JHB comparison): https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/451432-why-south-african-solar-power-systems-can-underperform-in-winter.html ChrisF 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schnavel Posted July 19, 2022 Share 24 minutes ago, LazyTrailRider said: Yip, completely expected, and we haven't actually seen much of the usual proper winter weather (with entire weeks of rain) yet. The reality is that the graph swings drastically in Cape Town. Case in point (@Schnavel have a look at the JHB comparison): https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/451432-why-south-african-solar-power-systems-can-underperform-in-winter.html Thanks for sharing - I didn't realise you were in Cape Town. Amazing how much of a difference it can cause, but you must then have plenty of supply on those long, sunny Summer days. Maybe worth investing in a wind turbine for the rest of the year? A constant 1kW from the wind will go a long way to offsetting your usage, and there is definitely no shortfall in that resource in the cape 🙂 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheoG Posted July 19, 2022 Share I have the following setup: Solar Panels: 10 x 455W = 4550 W (2 are dedicated to supply the geyser element) Inverter: 5kVA Batteries: 4 x 200Ah GEL My average daily use is 6.72 kWhr (205.8 per month or R312) now in winter and that is without dipping into the batteries at all at night. I cycle the GEL batteries as little as possible (only during load-shed at night) in order to get max life out of them. Clearly I could use far less if I had Li batteries and cycle them every night. Didn't have the funds yet to pull the trigger on Li batteries but soon ... very soon . PS: I use zero Escom on my geyser, we are only 3 adults in the house and the geyser is 150 liter. Sun power is sufficient to provide us with hot water even now in winter. mikkelz 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MongooseMan Posted July 19, 2022 Share Here's my monthly production over the last ~2 years (21x 410W panels, 15 NE facing, 6 NW facing). Some of this (mainly the summer months) is capped by demand (if the batteries are full and there's nothing on in the house, you stop producing if you're not pushing power back into the grid). M L, BigDL and TheoG 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shebeen Posted July 19, 2022 Share 15 minutes ago, Schnavel said: Thanks for sharing - I didn't realise you were in Cape Town. Amazing how much of a difference it can cause, but you must then have plenty of supply on those long, sunny Summer days. Maybe worth investing in a wind turbine for the rest of the year? A constant 1kW from the wind will go a long way to offsetting your usage, and there is definitely no shortfall in that resource in the cape 🙂 I actually did a mini thesis on this in 2010 comparing the options for different types of users in the main centres around CT! solar won everywhere (when panels were ~5 times the price of now). The problem with wind is you need consistency. The breeze in cape town winter is crap. either very calm or gusty strong. they also flippen noisy and ineffecient in any size for small power use. there's a reason you don't see much installed. TheoG, fanievb and BigDL 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave303e Posted July 19, 2022 Share 19 minutes ago, Shebeen said: I actually did a mini thesis on this in 2010 comparing the options for different types of users in the main centres around CT! solar won everywhere (when panels were ~5 times the price of now). The problem with wind is you need consistency. The breeze in cape town winter is crap. either very calm or gusty strong. they also flippen noisy and ineffecient in any size for small power use. there's a reason you don't see much installed. noisy and maintenance intensive. You have something spinning 24/7. Drive the freestate, count how many wind pomps you see in running condition vs standing doing forkall/broken... LazyTrailRider and TheoG 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LazyTrailRider Posted July 19, 2022 Share 19 minutes ago, Shebeen said: The problem with wind is you need consistency. The breeze in cape town winter is crap. either very calm or gusty strong. they also flippen noisy and ineffecient in any size for small power use. there's a reason you don't see much installed. Yup. They're expensive, inefficient, require maintenance, need to be installed on a massively reinforced base and are way too noisy for urban use. We live in a densely populated area and our plot is only 500sqm, so the only semi-feasible installation point would be 3m from someone's bedroom window in the next-door townhouse complex. Nope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted July 19, 2022 Share 13 minutes ago, MongooseMan said: Here's my monthly production over the last ~2 years (21x 410W panels, 15 NE facing, 6 NW facing). Some of this (mainly the summer months) is capped by demand (if the batteries are full and there's nothing on in the house, you stop producing if you're not pushing power back into the grid). Here's mine, but includes the split between grid usage and solar to give a total usage (kWh per month). M L, BigDL and TheoG 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted July 19, 2022 Share Guess which two days in the week we have the maid working... washing, ironing, vacuuming, etc. TheoG and M L 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheoG Posted July 19, 2022 Share We have the maid one day a week, the consumption for that day is also much more than the other days 🙈 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Ouzo Posted July 19, 2022 Share Has anyone done a Solar conversion to a standard geyser ? Right now the bulk of my usage is to the geyser, even with having it on a timer, I'd like to reduce that. M L 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave303e Posted July 19, 2022 Share 2 minutes ago, ouzo said: Has anyone done a Solar conversion to a standard geyser ? Right now the bulk of my usage is to the geyser, even with having it on a timer, I'd like to reduce that. no, but we have switched to gas geysers, a small one in kitchen and a large one for bathroom, makes no sense to have water warm all day sitting in a tank when you can heat it up instantly when needed. Also having 2 smaller ones makes for redundancy and you don't sit waiting for hot water to run from one end of the house to the other. ChrisL, BigDL and Mongoose! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheoG Posted July 19, 2022 Share 11 minutes ago, ouzo said: Has anyone done a Solar conversion to a standard geyser ? Right now the bulk of my usage is to the geyser, even with having it on a timer, I'd like to reduce that. Yes I did. 2 x 455W panels and controller feeding a dual element (solar & escom) in the geyser. I also have a Geyserwise timer but it is hardly ever required to use escom to heat the geyser. One of the best R19k I ever spent. Edit: You can convert your existing geyser to either vacuum tubes or solar panels like mine. I chose the panels since no plumbing is required hence an easier cheaper install. Edited July 19, 2022 by TheoG M L and Dirkitech 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheoG Posted July 19, 2022 Share 5 minutes ago, dave303e said: no, but we have switched to gas geysers, a small one in kitchen and a large one for bathroom, makes no sense to have water warm all day sitting in a tank when you can heat it up instantly when needed. Also having 2 smaller ones makes for redundancy and you don't sit waiting for hot water to run from one end of the house to the other. True but heating my geyser is not costing me one sent, don't have to buy gas and that is also getting very expensive ... BigDL 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisF Posted July 19, 2022 Share 17 minutes ago, ouzo said: Has anyone done a Solar conversion to a standard geyser ? Right now the bulk of my usage is to the geyser, even with having it on a timer, I'd like to reduce that. We did the Geyserwise dual element conversion about 7 years ago. Payback took 3 years, About 900W worth of PV for the second element. Summer time all our heating comes from this. Mid winter we do use a bit of eskom .... with the Dual timer it is possible to set up different temperature and time zones, so easy to optimise the usage vs PV generation. Biggest challenge is human behaviour ... Boyracer, TheoG and BigDL 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Ouzo Posted July 19, 2022 Share Thanks Anything to look out for ? Not do ? Must do ? Stay clear of ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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